Pheasant Cacciatore

I do a lot of comfort food with big, flavorful, stew-y things loaded with tomatoes and herbs and some sort of meat. In this case the meat is pheasant, and what better dish than pheasant cacciatore?

Hunter’s style. The French call it chasseur, the Spanish cazadores, the Italians cacciatore. This dish in its variations exists in all three countries.

But it is usually done with chicken, which makes me wonder: Is this the meal the failed hunter gets from his wife when he returns empty-handed? “Oh, Enzo!” she cries. “I am so sad for you — I’ll go kill another chicken for dinner.” Is this a meal eaten in sullen reflection of missed shots, sore feet, or birds flushed just a little too far away?

Probably not. I do not know the actual history of hunter’s style chicken, but I am guessing it is an outgrowth of the 17th century — and was initially done with pheasants or partridges. If I am right, cacciatore is a fascinating amalgam — tomatoes imported from the New World, pheasants from China.

Another possibility is that this is what the housewife (or servant, more likely, given the European hunting tradition), stewed for several hours while the hunters were out chasing pheasants or deer, making this chicken stew a welcome-home meal. If anyone has any insight into the history of cacciatore, I’m all ears.

What makes chasseur or cacciatore or cazadores unique? As far as I can tell, it requires these things:

A white meat, such as chicken, pheasant or rabbit

White wine

Tomatoes

Mushrooms

“Woodsy” herbs such as sage and rosemary

This dish is so satisfying, the way only the combination of tomatoes, wine, mushrooms and meat can be. I’d used pheasant legs and wings from birds that had hung for three days, and they were tender and deeper-tasting than any pheasant I’d eaten before. So I can happily say my experiment with hanging pheasants has, thus far, been a success.

Could you use chicken here? You bet, but please do your best to locate a stewing hen; try a Mexican or Asian market. These older hens taste better and can stand up to stewing better than the fryers or roasters, which in my opinion are too young.

Photo by Holly A. Heyser

What sort of mushrooms? A variety. Buttons are fine, but bolster them with some good dried ones. What sort of wine? A dry white: Think Pinot Grigio rather than a buttery Chardonnay. Herbs? Definitely sage and rosemary, but you could play with thyme, savory, oregano and parsley, too.

Finally, you must — must — have good bread to eat with this. If you are really hungry, add a big dollop of polenta, too. Buon appetito!

4.75 from 4 votes

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Pheasant Cacciatore

Prep Time

20mins

Cook Time

2hrs

Total Time

2hrs20mins

This is my take on a classic: Chicken cacciatore, or cazadores, or chasseur — Italy, Spain and France all have versions of this dish. Only I am doing it with what the hunter was probably going out for: pheasant. To get the best result from this recipe, use young pheasants; if you’ve shot some from a game club, they are perfect here. You can buy pheasant in good grocery stores, too, such as Raley’s in Sacramento where I live.

Course: Main Course

Cuisine: Italian

Serves: 4people

Author: Hank Shaw

Ingredients

2pheasants,cut into serving pieces

1/4poundpancettaor 4 strips bacon

3tablespponsolive oil(or pheasant or chicken fat)[/ingredient]

1chopped celery stalk

1chopped carrot

5cloveschopped garlic

1onion,sliced into half-moons

1quartcrushed tomatoes

2cupswhite wine

1tablespoonchopped fresh sage

1tablespoonchopped fresh rosemary

1teaspooncrushed juniper berries(optional)

4bay leaves

1/2ouncedried mushrooms(about a handful)

1/2poundfresh mushrooms,any kind

Salt and pepper to taste

4tablespoonsminced parsley

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

If using, cut the pancetta into little batons about 1/4 inch thick. In a large braising pan or Dutch oven, heat 2 tablespoons olive oil or pheasant or chicken fat over medium heat and cook the pancetta or bacon. Remove and reserve.

Add the pheasant pieces and brown them well. Take your time and do it in batches. Remove the pheasant pieces as they brown.

Add the carrot, celery, onions and the fresh mushrooms and turn the heat up to high. Saute them until the onions are wilted and are beginning to brown. Add more oil if needed. When they begin to brown, add the garlic and cook for another 1-2 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Add the herbs and the dried mushrooms and the white wine and turn up the heat to maximum. Stir well. Let the wine cook down by half. Add the tomatoes and mix well. Add some salt if needed. Add the bacon and the pheasant pieces, skin side up. Do not submerge the pheasant, just nestle the pieces into the sauce so the skin stays out of the liquid.

Cover and cook in the oven for 45 minutes. Check to see of the meat is thinking about falling off the bone. Sometimes with a young pheasant all it takes is 45 minutes. An hour or more is typical. When the meat is as tender as you want, remove the cover from the pot and cook until the skin crisps, about 30-45 more minutes.

Move the pheasant pieces to a plate. Add the parsley to the pot and mix to combine.

To serve, ladle some of the sauce out, top with a pheasant piece and serve with either polenta or a good crusty bread. I like a dry rose or a light red like a Sangiovese for this dish.

Reader Interactions

Comments

A buddy just gave me some pheasants he shot in South Dakota this Fall. Unfortunately, they have all been skinned. Will skinless Pheasant work alright for this recipe or should I go in a different direction.

Great recipe for game club pheasants, as advertised. Used it yesterday to cook up some sinewy-legged birds that were shot on Monday. After 1.5 hours, the meat wasn’t quite falling off the bone, but at least it was tender and way more edible than the pheasant legs I roasted on Tuesday which had sinews like rubber bands. Had to stop cooking at a little over 2 hours because (1) the sauce was perfection at that point and (2) it was 11 o’ clock at night which is kind of late to be eating dinner.

Only change I made to the recipe — other than not using juniper berries, because I couldn’t find any at Raley’s — was to do the braising on a gas range instead of in the oven. Not because I thought it would work better, I just don’t own an oven-proof braising pan or Dutch oven. So I treated the cacciatore the same way I would beef bourguignon or coq au vin, which is to cover and simmer for several hours. Seemed to work okay, though I couldn’t crisp the skin.

My father was born in the Calabria region of Italy in 1921. He always insisted that cacciatore does not have tomatoes in it, and he never saw cacciatore with tomatoes until he came to the United States. The story he told was that hunters would go out with a pocketful of herbs and would cook up their catch in the field. They would often gather mushrooms to add to it, and if they had some wine to put in the pot, so much the better. But a hunter would not carry tomatoes afield. He also,said that rabbitt was the most common meat cooked this way. I don’t know about the accuracy of this but my grandmother used to cook rabbitt (and sometimes chicken) cacciatore and it never had tomatoes in it.